Lecturers set to vote for strike action

LECTURERS across Edinburgh and the Lothians are set to take strike action following a dispute over their pay.

The country’s largest union for teachers and lecturers – the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) – has rejected a below-inflation pay rise offer of one per cent from employers, and urged its lecturer members in Scottish institutions to vote in favour of industrial action, due to take place on October 23.

The EIS Emergency Committee met yesterday to give formal approval to a programme of industrial action, which will include discontinuous strike action and other forms of industrial action.

EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said of the action: “Higher education lecturers have endured three successive years of real-terms pay cuts and have now signalled that they are not prepared to accept this year’s one per cent pay offer from their employers which, for the fourth successive year, is significantly below the rate of inflation.”